Forgive us our debts

Commenting on a post about Pope Francis's emphasis on mercy, KC Mulville:

Mercy has two sides, i.e., two perspectives, that we shouldn't mix. The first Christians, following their Jewish backgrounds, portrayed sin as a debt. From the debtor's point of view, no matter what the debt-holder does, he still owes the debt. On the other side, whether the debt-holder chooses to demand full repayment is entirely up to him.

Mercy is in the hands of the debt-holder. The debtor has no right to demand it. And, more importantly, if the debt-holder chooses to release it, the debtor cannot say that he never owed anything. That's why mercy doesn't contradict justice; the debtor can't deny his indebtedness. Whether the debt-holder forces him to repay is another matter.

On the other side, I disagree with those who say that Christ's attitude was to demand repentance before he would forgive. If anything, Jesus frequently reminds us that our own debt is enormous, and urges us to remember our own debt while we're deciding whether to squeeze others to repay theirs.

When Jesus said, "turn the other cheek," nowhere does it say "after he apologizes to you."

Teach us to feel the importance of every hour

Via Trevin Wax, an evening prayer from Jane Austen:

Father of Heaven! whose goodness has brought us in safety to the close of this day, dispose our hearts in fervent prayer. Another day is now gone, and added to those, for which we were before accountable.

Teach us almighty Father, to consider this solemn truth, as we should do, that we may feel the importance of every day, and every hour as it passes, and earnestly strive to make a better use of what Thy goodness may yet bestow on us, than we have done of the time past.

Give us grace to endeavour after a truly Christian spirit to seek to attain that temper of forbearance and patience of which our blessed Saviour has set us the highest example; and which, while it prepares us for the spiritual happiness of the life to come, will secure to us the best enjoyment of what this world can give.

Incline us, O God, to think humbly of ourselves, to be severe only in the examination of our own conduct, to consider our fellow-creatures with kindness, and to judge of all they say and do with that charity which we would desire from them ourselves.

We thank Thee with all our hearts for every gracious dispensation, for all the blessings that have attended our lives, for every hour of safety, health and peace, of domestic comfort and innocent enjoyment.

We feel that we have been blessed far beyond any thing that we have deserved; and though we cannot but pray for a continuance of all these mercies, we acknowledge our unworthiness of them and implore Thee to pardon the presumption of our desires.

Keep us O Heavenly Father from evil this night. Bring us in safety to the beginning of another day and grant that we may rise again with every serious and religious feeling which now directs us.

Incline us, O God, to Think Humbly of Ourselves: A Prayer of Jane Austen – Trevin Wax

"I Want You"

Apparently the famous World War I British recruiting poster "Your Country Needs You" never existed in that form until after the Great War.

But it did inspire this one, which was used in the United States in 1917:

The freedom of the press

A reference at "In Which I Read Vintage Novels" sent me to a 1946 collection of essays by Dorothy L. Sayers where, after reading the ones about feminism to which that post referred, I found "How Free is the Press?" from 1941 that, although the war started in 1939 is not about the censorship of the wartime press, but about its limitations in peacetime. I think this passage applies almost equally well today:

When we speak of "the freedom of the Press," we usually mean freedom in a very technical and restricted sense—namely, freedom from direction or censorship by the Government. In this respect, the British Press is, under ordinary conditions, singularly free. It can attack the policy and political character of ministers, interfere in the delicate machinery of foreign diplomacy, conduct campaigns to subvert the Constitution, incite citizens to discontent and rebellion, expose scandals and foment grievances, and generally harry and belabour the servants of the State, with almost perfect liberty. On occasion, it can become a weapon to coerce the Government to conform to what it asserts to be the will of the people.

So far, this is all to the good. Occasionally, this freedom may produce disastrous hesitations and inconsistencies in public policy, or tend to hamper the swift execution of emergency measures; but, generally speaking, it works to secure and sustain that central doctrine of Democracy as we understand it—that the State is not the master but the servant of the people.

The Press, as a whole, and in this technical and restricted sense, is thus pretty free in a peaceful Britain. There is no shade of political opinion that does not somehow contrive to express itself. But if we go on to imagine that any particular organ of the Press enjoys the larger liberty of being a "forum of public opinion," we are gravely mistaken. Every newspaper is shackled to its own set of overlords and, in its turn, like the Unmerciful Servant, exercises a powerful bondage upon its readers and on the public generally. Indeed, we may say that the heaviest restriction upon the freedom of public opinion is not the official censorship of the Press, but the unofficial censorship by a Press which exists not so much to express opinion as to manufacture it. (Dorothy L. Sayers, Unpopular Opinions: Twenty-One Essays, Victor Gollancz, London, 1946, pp. 127-128.)

In our time it is, of course, not just newspapers but also the television networks, whose selective narrative is today, I'm happy to say, subverted by cable and internet.

Knowing things

E.D. Hirsch has long been one of the most sensible critics of our public educational system. He sees some reason to be optimistic in aspects of the Common Core but there can be no quick fix. Nevertheless, if the most disadvantaged students are to have a chance, change must happen. Vocabulary and content are key. Hirsch's "A Wealth of Words" explains:

...[V]ocabulary size is a convenient proxy for a whole range of educational attainments and abilities—not just skill in reading, writing, listening, and speaking but also general knowledge of science, history, and the arts. If we want to reduce economic inequality in America, a good place to start is the language-arts classroom.

Early in the twentieth century, a well-meant but inadequate conception of education became dominant in the United States. It included optimism about children’s natural development, a belief in the unimportance of factual knowledge and book learning, and a corresponding belief in the importance of training the mind through hands-on practical experience. ....

Why should vocabulary size be related to achieved intelligence and real-world competence? Though the intricate details of cognitive abilities are under constant study and refinement, it’s possible to give a rough answer. The space where we solve our problems is called “working memory.” For everyone, even geniuses, it’s a small space that can hold only a few items in suspension for only a few seconds. If one doesn’t make the right connections within that space, one has to start over again. ....

.... Suppose you put a single item into your working memory—say, “Pasteur.” So long as you hold in your long-term memory a lot of associations with that name, you don’t need to dredge them up and try to cram them into your working memory. The name serves as a brief proxy for whatever aspects will turn out to be needed to cope with your problem. The more readily available such proxies are for you, the better you will be at dealing with various problems. Extend this example to whole spheres of knowledge and experience, and you’ll realize that a large vocabulary is a powerful coping device that enhances one’s general cognitive ability. ....

To make the necessary school changes in the United States, an intellectual revolution needs to occur to undo the vast anti-intellectual revolution that took place in the 1930s. We can’t afford to victimize ourselves further by continued loyalty to outworn and mistaken ideas. Of these, the idea that most requires overturning is how-to-ism—the notion that schooling should concern itself not with mere factual knowledge, which is constantly changing, but rather with giving students the intellectual tools to assimilate new knowledge. These tools typically include the ability to look things up, to think critically, and to accommodate oneself flexibly to the world of the unknowable future.

.... In English class, young children are now practicing soul-deadening how-to exercises like “finding the main idea” in a passage and “questioning the author.” These exercises usurp students’ mental capacity for understanding what is written by forcing them to think self-consciously about the reading process itself. The exercises also waste time that ought to be spent gaining knowledge and vocabulary. The increasingly desperate pursuit of this empty, formalistic misconception of reading explains why our schools’ intense focus on reading skills has produced students who, by grade 12, can’t read well enough to flourish at college or take a good job.

Another mistaken idea that must be scrapped is that curricula don’t need to build knowledge coherently and cumulatively. ....

It isn’t overstating the case to say that the most secure way to predict whether an educational policy is likely to help restore the middle class is to focus on the question: Is this policy likely to expand the vocabularies of 12th-graders? .... Educators and policymakers should inform themselves about the critical importance of factual knowledge and about the need for a specific and coherent yearly curriculum to impart that knowledge and language effectively. That won’t just improve students’ vocabularies; it will help restore the Jeffersonian ideal of equality of opportunity. [the full argument, including some of the research]

A Wealth of Words by E. D. Hirsch, Jr., City Journal Winter 2013

"When it gets this hot..."

In Body Heat, Ned Racine, talking to a cop friend:

Ned: How's the cop business, Oscar?

Oscar: Real good. Always starts hopping in weather like this. When it gets this hot, people try to kill each other.

Researchers quoted in a BBC story substantiate the premise:

The researchers looked at 60 studies from around the world, with data spanning hundreds of years.

They report a "substantial" correlation between climate and conflict.

Their examples include an increase in domestic violence in India during recent droughts, and a spike in assaults, rapes and murders during heatwaves in the US.

Later in the story a spoilsport is quoted:

"I was surprised to see not a single reference to a real-world conflict that plausibly would not have occurred in the absence of observed climatic extremes. If the authors wish to claim a strong causal link, providing some form of case validation is critical."

BBC News - Rise in violence 'linked to climate change'

"No one can refute me. Tastes are relative!”

Mollie Hemingway links to a selection of Amazon buyer one-star reviews of books that were on Time's list of the "100 Best Novels Since 1923." I'm not sure what it says about me that I agreed with many of them. On the other hand:

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (1950)
“I bought these books to have something nice to read to my grandkids. I had to stop, however, because the books are nothing more than advertisements for “Turkish Delight,” a candy popular in the U.K. The whole point of buying books for my grandkids was to give them a break from advertising, and here (throughout) are ads for this “Turkish Delight”! How much money is this Mr. Lewis getting from the Cadbury’s chocolate company anyway? This man must be laughing to the bank.”

Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1955)
“I am obsessed with Survivor, so I thought it would be fun. WRONG!!! It is incredibly boring and disgusting. I was very much disturbed when I found young children killing each other. I think that anyone with a conscience would agree with me.”

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954)
“The book is not readable because of the overuse of adverbs."

1984 by George Orwell (1948)
“Don’t listen to anyone who tries to distinguish between “serious” works of literature like this one and allegedly “lesser” novels. The distinction is entirely illusory, because no novels are “better” than any others, and the concept of a “great novel” is an intellectual hoax. This book isn’t as good as Harry Potter in MY opinion, and no one can refute me. Tastes are relative!” (more)

Lone Star Statements - The Morning News

"The crooked timber of humanity"

I have enjoyed watching Breaking Bad simply to see how Walter is going to get out of this situation or that—and there is humor, too. But perhaps there is more. Rich Lizardo writes "In Defense of the Antihero" about Walter White, among others:

For fans of the hit show Breaking Bad like myself, the premiere of its final season (well, technically, its second half of the final season), scheduled for August 11, can’t come soon enough. The show centers on the slow but sure downward spiral and moral decay of a former high school chemistry teacher turned meth kingpin. ....

In the case of Breaking Bad, we see all the rationalizations as well as all the irrationality that bring Walt to make bad decisions. And we see those decisions becoming worse and worse with bigger and bigger consequences.

Sure, I don’t know how the series will end, but I have a hunch it won’t end well for Walt. That being said...these shows still provide us with a moral compass. That moral compass might not show us virtue and what to emulate, but it clearly shows us vice as vice and as something not to emulate. ....

And Jonah Goldberg in the current National Review (behind a subscription wall) explains:

When we meet Walter, he is a wildly overqualified high-school chemistry teacher who works part time at a car wash for extra money. (In what becomes a crucial plot device, Walter worked for a tech startup but took a stupid buyout for $5,000. The company went on to be worth billions.) In the first 20 minutes of the first episode, he is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Impeccably decent and upright, Walter is confronted with the horror of leaving his wife, teenage son (who has cerebral palsy), and unborn daughter destitute. This medical and financial crisis leads Walter to a moral crisis. He gets the idea that he could use his skills as a scientist to cook methamphetamine, a.k.a. crystal meth. And not just any crystal meth: The once-promising professional chemist knows how to make meth better than anyone else. ....

The change that then takes place in Walter is so gradual, so human, that viewers are hard pressed to relinquish their fondness for him, even as he inexorably grows — transforms is probably the better word — into a monster. Gilligan calls it a “slow-motion wolfman story”: The Dr. Jekyll of Walter White slowly turns into the Mr. Hyde of his street name “Heisenberg” (not coincidentally, an homage to the author of the uncertainty principle). ....

What begins as a kind of play on the Thomistic principle that it is moral for a man to steal bread to feed his starving child grows into a painfully realistic tale of how a good man becomes evil. .... Once you step outside the borders of morality and the law, self-interest becomes self-justifying. Indeed, this is how pragmatism unchained from moral principles simply becomes a Nietzschean will to power. ....

...[W]hat is evil if not the ability to delude yourself into believing you are the sole arbiter of what is right and wrong based on your self-interest? Freedom itself is not evil, but freedom devoid of conscience — rightly formed conscience — is very close to the definition of evil. The bully is free to do what he likes simply because he is stronger and it pleases him to do so. It does not matter that he tells himself his cruelty is warranted. ....

Long before one gets into the partisan or ideological precepts and dogmas, there is at the irreducible core of conservatism the idea that human nature is what it is. Nation-states, technologies, cultures, even religions come and go, but what remains is humanity. Breaking Bad is one of the great novels of our age because it grapples with the crooked timber of humanity as it is, and painfully demonstrates that, once you choose to break out of the cage of civilization, you are not so much free as lost.

The first four seasons are available on Netflix.

The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : In Defense of the Antihero, Life and Death on Basic Cable | National Review Online

Liturgies

Kevin DeYoung asks the right question, "Is the New Evangelical Liturgy Really an Improvement?":

Every church has a liturgy. Traditional congregations have a general order to worship. So do contemporary congregations. So do funky, artistic ones. Church leaders do not have time to reinvent their services every week. ....

If I’m not mistaken, there is a New Evangelical Liturgy which is increasingly common in our churches. You find it in Baptist churches, Presbyterian churches, Reformed churches, free churches, and non-denominational churches. It’s familiar in rural churches and city churches. It can be found in tiny churches and megachurches. No one has written it down in a service book. No council or denomination is demanding that it be done. No pastor is taught this liturgy in seminary (um, probably not). But it has become the default liturgy nonetheless. It looks like this:

Casual welcome and announcements
Stand up for 4-5 songs
During the set, or at the very end, add a short prayer
Sermon
Closing song
Dismissal

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say this is the basic liturgy from which most evangelical churches operate. To be sure, there are slight variations. The announcement may go after the praise set. There may be an offering in there somewhere, possibly with a special music number. The service may be tweaked a bit when there is communion or a baptism. But overall, if I were to visit 50 different evangelical churches over the next year, this is what I expect to find most of the time.

The simple question I want to ask is this: Is this New Evangelical Liturgy really an improvement?

Please hear me. I’m not talking about instrumentation or worship style (though form is not irrelevant). And I’m not suggesting God doesn’t take pleasure when his people worship him in Spirit and in truth from all sorts of templates. I’m not saying people won’t be saved or edified in churches that use the New Evangelical Liturgy. I’m certainly not saying they won’t like it. What I am suggesting is that by no biblical or historical consideration can we conclude that the New Evangelical Liturgy is an improvement on the old liturgy. ....

For whatever appeal the New Evangelical Liturgy may have in American culture, and for whatever abuses or doldrums may be associated with a more traditional liturgy, I don’t believe it can be argued, by objective measures, that the new is superior to the old. Which liturgy has more prayer? What one has more Scripture? Which one does more to accent sin and forgiveness? Which ones anchors us better in the ancient creeds and confessions of the church? Which one is the product of more sustained theological reflection? Which is more shaped by the gospel? ....

.... Wherever it came from, I encourage pastors, worship leaders, and churches to consider whether this New Evangelical Liturgy is the best we can do. It may be familiar. It may be simple. It may even be popular. And it may still not be an improvement. (more)

Is the New Evangelical Liturgy Really an Improvement? – Kevin DeYoung

The best of CSL

 

 Alister McGrath, author of a recent biography of C.S. Lewis chooses his "Top 5 Books by C.S. Lewis:

• Mere Christianity
• The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
• The Abolition of Man
• The Last Battle
• The Pilgrim's Regress

Good choices, all.

My Top 5 Books by C.S. Lewis | Christianity Today

"The astounding arrogance of individualism"

Cole Carnesecca concedes that there is much truth in what Rachel Held Evans writes about "why Millennials are leaving the church," but he also perceives a problem:

.... When Evans states, rather emphatically, that,  “We’re not leaving the church because we don’t find the cool factor there; we’re leaving the church because we don’t find Jesus there,” I start to get nervous.

This statement is at once true and not true. It’s true in that there is obviously much that churches can do to better engage with Christ, with the fullness of who he was and what his message required. But it also reflects the astounding arrogance of individualism. The assumption underlying that statement is that the individual is the arbiter of truth in the world. It implies that millennials would know Jesus when they saw him, and the church needs to change itself until they can see him there.  What it leaves out is the idea that millennials need to conform themselves to the church to find Christ there.... [more]

Millennial Presumptions

A God without wrath

The editors of a new hymnbook recently decided to omit a hymn because its authors wouldn't permit them to modify "till on that cross as Jesus died/the wrath of God was satisfied" to "till on that cross as Jesus died/the love of God was magnified." Russell Moore on why the wrath of God is important to Christians:

.... When Christians sing about the wrath of God, we are singing about ourselves. Our consciences point us to the truth that, left to ourselves, we are undone. We’re not smarter or more moral than anyone else. And God would be just to turn us over to the path we would want to go—a path that leads to death. It is only because Jesus lived a life for us, and underwent the curse we deserve, that we stand before God. The grace of God we sing about is amazing precisely because God is just, and won’t, like a renegade judge, simply overlook evil.

Persons from other traditions will, of course, disagree with us about whether there is a God, whether he is loving and/or wrathful, and whether or not the Gospel is true. But Americans should recognize that the wrath of God isn’t some innovation by a tiny band of fundamentalists. ....

I’m hardly one to tell Presbyterians what they ought to have in their hymnals. But the Gospel is good news for Christians because it tells us of a God of both love and justice. The wrath of God doesn’t cause us to cower, or to judge our neighbors. It ought to prompt us to see ourselves as recipients of mercy, and as those who will one day give an account. .... [more]

Moore refers to "No Squishy Love" by Timothy George

In his 1934 book, The Kingdom of God in America, H. Richard Niebuhr depicted the creed of liberal Protestant theology, which was called “modernism” in those days, in these famous words: "A God without wrath brought man without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross." Niebuhr was no fundamentalist, but he knew what he was talking about. ....

Sin, judgment, cross, even Christ have become problematic terms in much contemporary theological discourse, but nothing so irritates and confounds as the idea of divine wrath. ....

God’s wrath is not like our wrath. Indeed, in his brilliant essay, “The Wrath of God as an Aspect of the Love of God,” British scholar Tony Lane explains that "the love of God implies his wrath. Without his wrath God simply does not love in the sense that the Bible portrays his love." God's love is not sentimental; it is holy. It is tender, but not squishy. It involves not only compassion, kindness, and mercy beyond measure (what the New Testament calls grace) but also indignation against injustice and unremitting opposition to all that is evil. .... [more]

The hymn that was at issue: "In Christ Alone"

Wrath of God verse roils hymnal group, Whatever happened to the wrath of God?, "No Squishy Love"

"Faith cometh by hearing..."

This could be interesting: The Art of Listening in the Early Church, by Carol Harrison. From the Amazon description:

.... The Christian faith came to the illiterate majority in the early Church through their ears. .... By examining early catechesis, preaching and prayer, she demonstrates that what illiterate early Christians heard both formed their minds and souls and, above all, enabled them to become "literate" listeners; able not only to grasp the rule of faith but also tacitly to follow the infinite variations on it which were played out in early Christian teaching, exegesis and worship. It becomes clear that listening to the faith was less a matter of rationally appropriating facts and more an art which needed to be constantly practiced: for what was heard could not be definitively fixed and pinned down, but was ultimately the Word of the unknowable, transcendent God. This word demanded of early Christian listeners a response — to attend to its echoes, recollect and represent it, stretch out towards its source, and in the process, be transformed by it.

The Art of Listening in the Early Church: Carol Harrison: Amazon.com: Books

Jerked out of "the warm comfort of our own understanding"

From the first chapter of Matthew Lee Anderson's The End of Our Exploring:

.... Pain renders the world's goodness questionable. It shocks us out of our complacent attachment to the blessings of comfort and prosperity. It reopens the universe to us, casting a shadow over our lives and the goodness we had wrongly "taken for granted." When we see the reason for our pain, when we are finally given the meaning—the satisfaction will be a joy beyond words, a peace beyond understanding. But until then, the questions that grip us demonstrate the nature of our hearts and our fundamental need for the purification of our desires.

It is a sign of the frailty of contemporary Christianity, rather than its strength, that we often do not begin to question until the megaphone of suffering has awakened us from our sleep. Until suffering comes upon us, the explorations that consume our hearts and our communities reflect the shallowness of our lives. We ask our questions forgetting that we lie under the shadow—under the sentence—of death. Our lack of courage keeps us free to live among distractions and trivialities and stay within the warm comfort of our own understanding. But our "freedom" is only bondage, and these days our chains are only broken when death and pain's rude irruption turns our faces toward the unknown, undiscovered country all around us. ....

The End of Our Exploring: A Book about Questioning and the Confidence of Faith

It wasn't really about evolution?

Glenn Reynolds notes the anniversary of the Scopes Trial: "...what you think you know about it is probably wrong — especially if what you think you know about it comes from watching Inherit The Wind. I highly recommend Ed Larson’s excellent treatment, A Summer For The Gods." (I've read that book and agree.) One of the comments asserts that the controversy "wasn't about evolution but eugenics" and in support links to a selection of passages from the textbook that caused the controversy. For example:

The Races of Man. - At the present time there exist upon the earth five races or varieties of man, each very different from the other in instincts, social customs, and, to an extent, in structure. These are the Ethiopian or negro type, originating in Africa; the Malay or brown race, from the islands of the Pacific; the American Indian; the Mongolian or yellow race, including the natives of China, Japan, and the Eskimos; and finally, the highest race type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America.

Eugenics. - When people marry there are certain things that the individual as well as the race should demand. The most important of these is freedom from germ diseases which might be handed down to the offspring. Tuberculosis, syphilis, that dread disease which cripples and kills hundreds of thousands of innocent children, epilepsy, and feeble-mindedness are handicaps which it is not only unfair but criminal to hand down to posterity. The science of being well born is called eugenics.

Parasitism and its Cost to Society. - Hundreds of families such as those described above exist to-day, spreading disease, immorality, and crime to all parts of this country. The cost to society of such families is very severe. Just as certain animals or plants become parasitic on other plants or animals, these families have become parasitic on society. They not only do harm to others by corrupting, stealing, or spreading disease, but they are actually protected and cared for by the state out of public money. Largely for them the poorhouse and the asylum exist. They take from society, but they give nothing in return. They are true parasites.

Problem: Should the feeble-minded be allowed to marry?

The Remedy. - If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race. Remedies of this sort have been tried successfully in Europe and are now meeting with success in this country. [more]

Instapundit » Blog Archive » WITH PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE SCOPES TRIAL, let me just note that what you think …, The Scopes Trial:

"It was a dark and stormy night."

Stephen King on why he "spends 'months and even years' writing opening sentences":

.... People come to books looking for something. But they don't come for the story, or even for the characters. They certainly don't come for the genre. I think readers come for the voice.

A novel's voice is something like a singer's — think of singers like Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan, who have no musical training but are instantly recognizable. When people pick up a Rolling Stones record, it's because they want access to that distinctive quality. They know that voice, they love that voice, and something in them connects profoundly with it. Well, it's the same way with books. Anyone who's read a lot of John Sanford, for example, knows that wry, sarcastic amusing voice that's his and his alone. Or Elmore Leonard — my god, his writing is like a fingerprint. You'd recognize him anywhere. An appealing voice achieves an intimate connection — a bond much stronger than the kind forged, intellectually, through crafted writing.

With really good books, a powerful sense of voice is established in the first line. ....

A book won't stand or fall on the very first line of prose — the story has got to be there, and that's the real work. And yet a really good first line can do so much to establish that crucial sense of voice — it's the first thing that acquaints you, that makes you eager, that starts to enlist you for the long haul. So there's incredible power in it, when you say, come in here. You want to know about this. And someone begins to listen. ....

The Atlantic, at King's suggestion then asked over twenty authors what their favorite first lines are, several by writers of crime fiction. For instance:

I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. —Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of the Dancers. —Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

When the woman screamed, Parker awoke and rolled off the bed. —Richard Stark, The Outfit

Nobody ever walked across the bridge, not on a night like this. The rain was misty enough to be almost foglike, a cold gray curtain that separated me from the pale ovals of white that were faces locked behind the steamed-up windows of the cars that hissed by. Even the brilliance that was Manhattan by night was reduced to a few sleepy, yellow lights off in the distance. —Mickey Spillane, One Lonely Night

When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon. —James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss

I chose these from among the choices because mysteries and thrillers are my favorite recreational reading. I think each of these lines meet King's criteria.

I came to these posts via Judith Levy at Ricochet. Here are some favorite [non-crime writer] first lines from some of the comments on her post:

You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.  That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. — Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn

Marley was dead: to begin with. —Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. —Raymond Chandler, Red Wind

People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in wintertime to avenge her father's blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward named Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band. Here is what happened." —Charles Portis, True Grit

My own favorite beginning:

SQUIRE TRELAWNEY, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17__ and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof. —Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

Why Stephen King Spends 'Months and Even Years' Writing Opening Sentences - Joe Fassler - The Atlantic, 'This Did Something Powerful to Me': Authors' Favorite First Lines of Books - Joe Fassler - The Atlantic, Now That's a First Line - Ricochet.com

Not domineering...

Via Justin Taylor who, after quoting from 1 Peter 5:1,3:

"...I exhort the elders among you...to shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight...not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock."

...links to a post by Sam Storms about what characterizes "Pastoral Bullies." A few of the points:

• A man can “domineer” or “lord it over” his flock by intimidating them into doing what he wants done by holding over their heads the prospect of loss of stature and position in the church.
• A pastor domineers whenever he threatens them with stern warnings of the discipline and judgment of God, even though there is no biblical basis for doing so.
• A pastor domineers whenever he threatens them with public exposure of their sin should they not conform to his will and knuckle under to his plans.
• A pastor domineers whenever he uses the sheer force of his personality to overwhelm others and coerce their submission.
• A pastor domineers whenever he presents himself as super-spiritual (his views came about only as the result of extensive prayer and fasting and seeking God. How could anyone then possibly disagree with him?).
• He domineers by building into people a greater loyalty to himself than to God. Or he makes it appear that not to support him is to work at cross purposes with God.
• He domineers by short circuiting due process, by shutting down dialogue and discussion prematurely, by not giving all concerned an opportunity to voice their opinion.
• He domineers by establishing an inviolable barrier between himself and the sheep. He either surrounds himself with staff who insulate him from contact with the people or withdraws from the daily affairs of the church in such a way that he is unavailable and unreachable.
• Related to the above is the practice of some in creating a governmental structure in which the senior pastor is accountable to no one, or if he is accountable it is only to a small group of very close friends and fellow elders who stand to profit personally from his tenure as pastor.
• He domineers by making people feel unsafe and insecure should they desire to voice an objection to his proposals and policies. .... [read it all]

Sam Storms: Oklahoma City, OK > Pastoral Bullies

Tolkien on the surveillance state

"The Eye of Sauron is the Modern Surveillance State":

What can literary fiction teach us about recent revelations that the National Security Agency has aggressively been gathering massive amounts of data on American citizens? The novel one usually turns to, of course, is George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, with its terrifying vision of the Thought Police. .... Orwell’s book, however, isn’t the most compelling or accurate literary prediction of modern surveillance. That award goes to a less obvious title: J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien’s most potent and intimidating image of centralized surveillance, the Eye of Sauron atop a tower, taking in the whole world, has resonated with those who are paranoid about government monitoring. But it’s Sauron’s vulnerability that has the most relevance for America today. ....

Tolkien’s vision offers at least three lessons for present-day America. ....

1. All-Seeing Is Not All-Knowing

...[T]he world he created allowed Tolkien to address problems that conventional realism had seemingly abandoned. The most important of them was the distinction between omnipotence and omniscience. In Orwell’s work...those two terms are nearly synonymous: The Thought Police always know what Winston Smith is up to. But for a believer like Tolkien, only God can know everything. And in Sauron, Tolkien is able to imagine a figure of godlike power and seemingly infinite resources, but crippling interpretive fallibility.

Sauron’s main problem, in a nutshell, is a lack of empathy: He is unable to conceive of anyone possessing a set of values fundamentally different from his own. For Sauron, power—embodied by the one ring—is self-evidently a good in itself. Therefore anyone who possesses the ring will attempt to use it and thus fall into his clutches. The thought that someone might choose instead to destroy the ring (and possibly destroy himself in the process) never crosses Sauron’s mind. He suffers from a crippling case of “confirmation bias”—a fundamental problem for every intelligence agency. We see the things we want to see, which is a problem when one’s enemies have worldviews utterly different from one’s own. .... [more]

Tolkien v. Orwell: Who understood modern surveillance best? - Slate Magazine

In a time of war

A "Copperhead" was an antiwar Northerner during the Civil War.  Bill Kauffman wrote the screenplay for Copperhead, a new movie that recounts the effects of that war on the relationships among the inhabitants of a small community in upstate New York. Kauffman was annoyed by a recent review and responds with "How Not to Watch Copperhead, explaining what the film is really about. I could have done without what seemed to me rather overwrought modern political applications, but now very much want to see the film. Kauffman:

.... Typically, in a story of a dissenter, the author flatters himself and the audience. The deck is stacked; the cards are marked. Every right-thinking reader or viewer is confident that of course he or she would be at the side of this poor recusant who is being persecuted by narrow-minded peasants or by clerics who deny that the earth revolves ‘round the sun or that man is a product of evolution or that the earth is older than six thousand years or that witches should not be hanged. But really: is there anything easier than standing—at a very safe distance of years—with Galileo or Scopes or the martyrs of Salem?

.... It’s so easy to say that you’re for free speech; that you honor the First Amendment; that though you may not agree with so and so who says such and such, you’ll defend to the death his right to say it. Well, here’s Abner Beech, an Upstate New York farmer of 1862. He thinks this war between the states—this hallowed war, this bloodletting out of which modern America was born—is an unconstitutional atrocity. He despises the soon-to-be martyred Abraham Lincoln, who by most 21^st-century lights is the greatest American hero. Abner stands up and speaks his piece—his peace—during time of war.

Okay, Mr. Free Speech. Are you willing to defy the mob and defend Abner?

It's not so easy. ....

In “Copperhead,” the abolitionist Esther (who with her pacifist brother is the moral center of the movie) suggests to the Irish farmhand and Copperhead Hurley that maybe poetry is more important than politics. I believe that; Jee and Abner, the abolitionist and the antiwar Democrat antagonists, do not.

Jee is of course right about slavery. If that were the only issue it’d be a pretty clear case of right and wrong. But that’s not the only issue. From Abner’s point of view, there’s also the U.S. Constitution, which is being stretched and violated by things like the suspension of habeas corpus, the closing down of antiwar newspapers, and, ultimately, the draft, which many Democrats saw, ironically, as a form of slavery. And there’s also the not-so-small matter—which is, bizarrely, often an afterthought—of 700,000 dead Americans. ....

“Copperhead” does not end with an affirmation of the Union, as convention would dictate. Nor does it end with an affirmation of disunion, as would a pro-Confederate film. Instead, it ends by affirming the Corners, the settlement of the Beech and Hagadorn families, as superior, in the lives of its inhabitants, to those larger countries. It reminds us that a patriot should never boast of the largeness of his country but rather should take pride in its smallness.

Peace, community, dissent, respect for rural Christianity: these are “Copperhead’s” themes. And they are as American as Crazy Horse, baseball, and Jack Kerouac. [more]

I do want to see this film.

How Not to Watch ‘Copperhead’ | The American Conservative

"Go ye into all the world, and preach..."

Seventh Day Baptists created societies to support missionary efforts as early as 1818. That was pretty common for Baptists then and continues to this day, but there was, in reaction, an anti-missionary movement among some that Thomas Kidd describes here:

.... Baptists and other evangelicals founded a number of missions-sending organizations in the first two decades of the nineteenth century, which precipitated a backlash among certain Baptists who opposed the work of the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions and other such agencies.

Why in the world, we may ask, would any Baptist oppose missions? ....

The two major factors driving antimissionism were radical biblicism and anti-elitism. Most of the leading antimission voices are not well known – John Leland...is the best known today, but others like Daniel Parker and Joshua Lawrence were more vocal at the time. The antimission critics were suspicious of the missions agencies because Scripture did not sanction or contemplate them. ...Antimissionists said that the silence of Scripture prohibited the newfangled organizations. The early church didn’t need them, and the gospel had gone forth in power without them. Why should we depart from the simplicity of the New Testament model, they asked? ....

Some historians have made a great deal out of the “hyper-Calvinism” of the antimissionists, and that theology did play a greater role in the antimissionists’ chief institutional legacy, the Primitive Baptist churches. Daniel Parker, for example, taught a peculiar (and many thought heretical) “Two Seed in the Spirit” doctrine of election, but his view was not held widely among early antimissionists. More commonly, the antimissionists were concerned that the missions agencies, as well as novel revivalist tactics such as the “anxious bench”, might undermine Baptists’ understanding that conversion depended totally on God’s power and sovereign will. This was largely an intra-Calvinist Baptist debate, however. By the 1840s, the antimission Baptists had drawn away as many as 68,000 Baptists from the pro-missions churches. Over time, the antimission movement became institutionalized in the Primitive Baptist churches, but they fell far behind missions-oriented Baptists in adherents by the beginning of the twentieth century. .... [more]

A cousin believes that our great-grandfather—the first Seventh Day Baptist on the Skaggs side of the family—came from the Primitive Baptists. I wonder whether a similar controversy about missions affected SDBs.

The Strange Career of the Antimission Baptists